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Rivian CEO says third-party AI agents such as Anthropic's will come to its cars
Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said at TechCrunch Disrupt that the company's vehicles will eventually run AI agents from other companies, naming Anthropic as an example. He gave no date, and Rivian pointed to its AI and Autonomy Day in December. Scaringe said agents will not be given vehicle-level controls.
Key points
- Rivian's in-house agent framework routes simple requests to a local model and complex ones to the cloud.
- Scaringe gave no timeline; Rivian pointed to an AI and Autonomy Day in December.
- Scaringe said vehicle-level controls will not be handed to an AI agent.
What happened: Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week that the company's electric vehicles will eventually run AI agents from other companies, such as Anthropic. "That's where it becomes magical," he said, according to TechCrunch.
The details: Rivian recently rolled out an AI assistant that lets drivers and passengers interact with the vehicle by voice. Its in-house agentic framework decides what a request calls for and routes it to the right part of the software, which Scaringe compared to "a traffic light." Simple requests can run on a local model in the car, while more complex ones go to the cloud, where Rivian uses different models. Typical requests include adjusting temperature, turning on seat warmers and summarizing news, and since May the agent has been able to access apps such as Google Calendar.
Who it affects: Scaringe said adding frontier AI products takes significant "plumbing" and coordination with AI labs. He said vehicle-level controls will not be handed to an agent, because the software sits near safety-critical systems. He described a future where a driver could ask for ventilated seats and help planning a dinner in the same conversation, with the car pulling context from another device.
What to watch: Scaringe gave no date, and Rivian declined to add details, pointing to its AI and Autonomy Day event in December. No partnership with any AI lab has been confirmed.
Our take
AI assistants are spreading into new surfaces like cars, which widens where business tools and agents may need to work.